What does the bet din say to the convert ? TB Yevamot 47

We have previously established that a Gentile who wants to convert must appear before a bet din, a court of three. Daf TB Yevamot 47 shares a paradigm what does this process look like.

“§ The Sages taught in a baraita: With regard to a potential convert who comes to a court in order to convert, at the present time, when the Jews are in exile, the judges of the court say to him: What did you see that motivated you to come to convert? Don’t you know that the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them? If he says: I know, and although I am unworthy of joining the Jewish people and sharing in their sorrow, I nevertheless desire to do so, then the court accepts him immediately to begin the conversion process.

“And the judges of the court inform him of some of the lenient mitzvot and some of the stringent mitzvot, and they inform him of the sin of neglecting the mitzva to allow the poor to take gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and produce in the corner of one’s field, and about the poor man’s tithe. And they inform him of the punishment for transgressing the mitzvot, as follows: They say to him: Be aware that before you came to this status and converted, had you eaten forbidden fat, you would not be punished by karet, and had you profaned Shabbat, you would not be punished by stoning, since these prohibitions do not apply to gentiles. But now, once converted, if you have eaten forbidden fat you are punished by karet, and if you have profaned Shabbat, you are punished by stoning.

“And just as they inform him about the punishment for transgressing the mitzvot, so too, they inform him about the reward granted for fulfilling them. They say to him: Be aware that the World-to-Come is made only for the righteous, and if you observe the mitzvot you will merit it, and be aware that the Jewish people, at the present time, are unable to receive their full reward in this world; they are not able to receive either an abundance of good nor an abundance of calamities, since the primary place for reward and punishment is in the World-to-Come. And they do not overwhelm him with threats, and they are not exacting with him about the details of the mitzvot.

“If he accepts upon himself all of these ramifications, then they circumcise him immediately. If there still remain on him shreds of flesh from the foreskin that invalidate the circumcision, they circumcise him again a second time to remove them. When he is healed from the circumcision, they immerse him immediately, and two Torah scholars stand over him at the time of his immersion and inform him of some of the lenient mitzvot and some of the stringent mitzvot. Once he has immersed and emerged, he is like a born Jew in every sense.” (Sefaeria.org translation)

Unfortunately the ultra-Orthodox in Israel have hijacked the conversion process. They make it nearly impossible for person to join the Jewish people unless they accept their ultra-Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. To say the least they demand a lot more than “some of the lenient mitzvot and some of the stringent mitzvot, and they inform him of the sin of neglecting the mitzva to allow the poor to take gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and produce in the corner of one’s field, and about the poor man’s tithe.” Sometimes a person is forced to lie, if he wishes to marry in Israel.

Joel Chasnoff describes his conversion ordeal in his book The 188^th Cry Baby Brigade. Although Joel’s mother converted under the auspices of Orthodox rabbis, Joel attended a Jewish day school in Chicago, and was serving as a lone soldier in the Israeli Armed Forces, the rabbis decreed that he wasn’t Jewish because his mother had study with a Conservative rabbi and he had to convert if he wished to marry his Israeli girlfriend. He writes:

“Meanwhile, at the top of the pyramid is this tiny group of rabbis who think they’re Kings of the Jews and therefore get to decide who’s in and who’s out. But the Kings of the Jews are out of touch, because they fail to realize that Israel’s future, if it has one, depends on all the reject-Jews they’ve been pushing away from the table: the half-Jews and intermarried Jews, the queer and bi Jews, the women rabbis and young, freethinking Israelis who crave spirituality, not just restrictions, and the children of supposedly illegitimate converts like me…

“I called Rabbi R and explain my quandary. When necessary I am embellished.

“So you were raised Orthodox?” He asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“And your Orthodox now?”

“Absolutely,” I lied.

“I didn’t feel the least bit guilty lying to this famous Rabbi because as far as I was concerned, Israel’s policy towards my mother’s conversion-a policy Rabbi R subscribed to-is unjust. In fact, in my eyes, I wasn’t even lying. I was simply saying what needed to be said to counter their shortsightedness and fix their previous error…

“(Dressed like a Yeshiva boy he met Rabbi R somewhere in the Occupied territories) he asked if I found it difficult to be Orthodox in the Army.

“Yes. Very,” I said. “I had to skip breakfast to pray. Sometimes my buddies forgot to make me sandwiches.”

“I told him about the nine years I studied in Yeshiva and my stint in the basketball team. All of it lies.

“Rabbi R explained that, ordinarily, a conversion required three years of intensive study. But, seeing how I was raised in an Orthodox home, was Orthodox now, and had attended Orthodox Yeshiva since kindergarten, he’d waive the study period, perform the ceremony, and fix the glitch. For paperwork reasons, it will be simplest we did the ceremony outside Israel.

“I told Rabbi R I’d be in Chicago for Rosh Hashanah. He said he’d be spending Yom Kippur in New York. We agreed to meet on a Monday morning in late September at the mikvah on the upper West side.”

(After immersing three times, the rabbi handed him the certificate of conversion.)

“Even though I chose to convert, I’m furious at Israel for forcing me to choose, for humiliating me, for making me stand naked before three rabbis. I’m also furious at myself for going through with it, because by dunking in that pool, I accepted their claim that is they, not I, who get to determine who I am.

“I hope that one day I will forgive myself. Maybe, some after, I’ll forgive Israel. But for now, all I can do is walk. I have a wedding to plan. A life to begin. A flight to catch.” (Pages 255-259)

I think Joel has forgiven Israel for he has made Israel his home and there he is raising his family. This is just one horror story example when people have to deal with the Israeli rabbinate. No wonder these rabbis have turned off so many Israelis from our religion.